How I Met Your Mother: To the end and beyond

How I Met Your Mother is a story about Ted Mosby who tells his kids the story of how he met their mother, but as most of us have been complaining just like the kids that the story goes too long where mother is not even the part of the story. This topic is debated a lot over by fans and critics but according to the vision that Craig and Carter (the writers of the show) had in mind, this controversy was not only supposed to exist, but to be proven right as well. Ted’s kids after listening to the entire story have a similar reaction to ours and they complain to him that the story was hardly about their mother and mostly about how Ted was completely in love with their aunt Robin. Therefore the kids act as our mouthpiece in judging his story and the motive of it that is to seek their permission to be able to see her again. This particular scene was shot in 2006 and so the end was clearly thought out by the writers in the very beginning only and it serves two purposes:-
1. To justify the story being about five people growing together and being in love.
2. To put an end to the debate over the story not involving the mother as that is what is supposed to be.
Many viewers consider the surprise end as abrupt, but it is not so as the foundation for such an end starts building from season 8 where Victoria breaks up with Ted because of Robin and  she hopes he gets her someday. Then in ep20 of season 9 (Daisy) where Tracy states that every mother is there for her daughter’s wedding and its nothing surprising and Ted after hearing this has tears in his eyes, indicating that Tracy might not be able to attend her own daughter’s wedding which is actually true due to her sickness(that is known to them) and her death. Secondly, when Robin is confused over her decision to marry Barney her mother asks her if she has found someone to depend upon completely and she skeptically says yes (possibly Ted). Even if she’s talking about Barney, the flustered look on her face signifies that she’s not very confident about her decision. Finally, her thought of eloping with Ted on her wedding day makes this idea pretty obvious.

Why Ted and Robin work together and why Robin and Barney don’t?

Barney loved her truly, but was not right for her that somewhere she also knew. His dishonesty was the reason of Robin’s confusion over marrying him. The most romantic things he did for her namely the rehearsal dinner and the grand proposal, were all based on lies. Even after the proposal Robin angrily says that it’s the proof of why they would never work since he lied to her and this trick of his has set her free, but then agrees to his proposal happily the very next moment, clearly ignoring a practical idea that she herself was advocating. Also before her wedding and at the carousel, she tries to reconsider her decision of marrying Barney, but again she avoids her pragmatic ideas and chooses the fantastic one on the pleadings of Ted. ”Barney loves you and you love Barney and that doesn’t have to make sense to make sense”, a utopian yet clearly impractical idea. Ted also changes his ideology while consoling Robin that there is no such thing as universe and it’s signs ,therefore kind of forcing her into a decision she has made and is not sure about. Before the wedding when Barney vows to always be honest and true to her, he lies to her the very next moment about the flower gorilla thus, breaking the vow. And since their wedding was legendary, it was meant to be broken as according to Robin, legendary is unreal.

The fact cannot be unseen that it was Ted who opened Robin to the idea of marriage and with him she had her first serious relationship. Robin till the very end knew that he will always come through for her, especially when it came to finding her locket. The motif of the locket can also not be ignored as it plays the role of making Robin realize that Ted is right for her. From the beginning of the season 9, Lily keeps telling Ted not to  give the locket to Robin as it will change her feelings towards him and in the end, that's what happens. Their friendship culminated into a love relationship that ended when they realized they wanted different things in life and so were not suitable. But down the line they did have feelings for each other always. But, in ‘No pressure’, season 7, Ted proposed Robin who declined his proposal. With this, Robin closed the door to any possible future between them. Ted somewhere also realized that they don’t have a possible future and that he was only living in the past memories and his love for her was now a mere illusion. All this while he was eliminating the bad and magnifying her good. And this illusion never let him see the yellow umbrella- a recurring symbol for the mother that he only saw after he was freed from this illusion. The Florence+ the machine song playing in the background has lyrics, “it’s always darkest before the dawn” and “I’ve been a fool, I’ve been blind. I can never leave the past behind” indicating towards Ted’s condition which is similar to that of Florentino Ariza who was unable to move forward in life and forget Fermina Daza in “Love in the time of cholera” according to t.v critic Gregory J. Helmstetter. Helmstetter believes that Marshall in a similar moment tells Robin to move out so as to not hurt herself and Ted anymore just like Fermina’s father makes her leave the city to forget Florentino. In another scene, Ted in the subway reads Marquez’s another great novel,  “One hundred years of solitude” symbolizing that Ted must endure solitude in order to get what he truly deserves. Helmstetter talks about literature as throughout the series Ted has been so obsessed with imitating art, like Neruda’s poems that he could not find ‘’the one’’ in real since he was living in his past and trying to make failed things work.

Also in this episode, all the characters are wearing colour purple thus signifying that Ted and Robin’s love that began in “purple giraffe” where the giraffe is violet in colour has ended. Therefore, marking their era.  And according to the basic colour theory, violet is the colour opposite to yellow, so he has to move on from violet to see it’s opposite, the mother. Eventually, Robin leaves to make way for the Tracy in Ted’s life and it is only after her divorce that Robin is really able to feel her love for him and laments the fact that she didn’t end up with him.

Fans complaint that Tracy’s character comes and goes from the show, but let’s not forget that her character plays the role of uniting Ted and Robin that it ultimately is designed for. Tracy plays a very significant role in the story and that is Robin’s redemption. Through her death, she frees Robin from the mess that she has created by marrying and then divorcing Barney. Secondly, its important for Tracy to enter Ted’s life as without marrying Tracy, Ted would never have been happy with Robin since both wanted different things in life- Ted wants kids and family while Robin wants to focus on her career  and Tracy is able able to give Ted two children that Robin could not have given him. Meanwhile, Robin is able to concentrate on her career and achieve all she wanted to. So, now the mother makes a room for Robin who can be with Ted without bearing the burden of being a mother and sacrificing her career and Ted getting a family and the love of his life as well. So, first Robin empties the space for Tracy who later does the same for Robin. Although Ted deserves Robin, we fail to understand why Robin deserves him because she never did anything even close to what he did for her. In fact, she in the show comes up as a character who can be seen as self-centered. Her urge to focus on her career and achieve success culminates into over ambition, thus sacrificing her personal relationships not only with her husband, but also with all her friends. Though it is because of her failed marriage and regret over not being with Ted, but she does become cold and aloof to all her friends clearly avoiding them, as seen in the final episode. The fact cannot be ignored that she never took an effort to save her relationships or to do anything to achieve love in her life.  Throughout the series we can only see Ted and Barney trying to woo her through blue French horn or “The Robin” while she acts as a trophy who they compete to win. Questions also arise that why would Robin have a successful relationship with Ted if she could not manage to maintain any of her past relationships. The answer lies in the fact that she suffered for a very long time after her divorce in order to value Ted’s love and now that she has focused on her career and achieved what she wanted to, she can now commit to the second most important thing that she wanted- Ted.

Since the show works on the principle that all the central characters attain a satisfactory end, Barney doesn’t seem to be happy after his divorce. He achieves happiness only with the birth of his daughter Ellie. Ellie is not only his daughter but his redeemer that came in his life accidentally. It is only because of her that Barney, the womanizer becomes concerned about protection and safety of women as seen in the series finale. A daughter makes him realize why and how is it important to keep other women secure as he would not like his daughter to be with a guy like himself. As we know that he himself was abandoned by his father and that made him use the defense mechanism of his “awesomeness” to cope up with those issues, we can expect him not to do that to his daughter. On the other hand he is very much concerned about her and is seen loving and taking care of her.

There might be complaints about the dynamics of the relationships of these friends completely changing in the finale episode and that the ending is a sad one. But Craig and Carter take a realistic approach and describe that things never remain the same throughout our lives and things do take unhappy turns that are to be accepted. The “Ted or Barney” debate might never end but what happens is clearly thought out and works on the principle that no matter how legendary things might be, there’s no “happily ever after” always.